1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an air conditioner, more particularly, to an air conditioner of which the air flow can be freely selected upwardly and downwardly.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A conventional air conditioner is disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,831,395, which includes a cabinet located in a building space to be conditioned adjacent to a building wall having an opening. The cabinet has a pair of outside air inlets and outlet communicating through the wall opening, and interiorly located condenser in the cabinet situated in a path of cooling air between one inlet and outlet. The cabinet has a room air inlet and a conditioned air outlet, and an evaporator interposed in the path of fluid movement between the room air inlet and conditioned air outlet.
With the air conditioner constructed as described above, the condenser is located in the path of cooling air between the inlet and outlet, the evaporator is interposed in the path of fluid movement between the room air inlet and conditioned air outlet and the conditioned air is discharged through a conditioned air outlet 50 which is formed on the top wall 34, thereby causing a disadvantage that heating efficiency may be deteriorated.
FIGS. 1 and 2 show another conventional air conditioner. As shown in the drawings, a front panel 6 is provided on the front side of an air conditioner body 18 and has at its upper side, a first opening 3 and at its lower side a second opening 4, the first opening having air up/down control plates 1 and the wind right/left control plates 1a. In the interior of the second opening 4, a filter (not shown) is preferably disposed in the inner side of a grille so as to filter dust and the like entrained in the room air. An operation control unit 2 for controlling the air conditioner is provided on the upper right area between the first and second openings 3 and 4. Also, a plurality of side fixing plates 5 and 5 are arranged at the lower end of the right and left sides of FIG. 1 (a) to fix the air conditioner body to a supporting object not shown in the room. At the generally central area of the right side of FIG. 1, an openable combustor cover 17 is mounted separably so as to allow a user to check a combustion burner 16 which is disposed in the air conditioner (see FIG. 2(b)). Furthermore, a cooling heating-exchanger 7 for cooling the room air circulated by a convective blower 11 is arranged on the upper inner side of the front panel 6 as shown in FIGS. 2 (a) and (b). At the lower side of the heat exchanger 7, a drain pipe 13 is connected to a condensed water collecting bowl to drain outwardly the condensed water, the bowl collecting the condensed water which is produced during due to the cooling of the room air.
Further, a heating heat-exchanger 8 is arranged at the lower side of the heat-exchanger 7 to warm the room air sucked in by the blower 11 so as to warm the room by discharging the warm air through the first opening 3.
More particularly, a connecting opening 15, which accommodates an air supplying pipe for guiding the combustion air to be introduced into the burner, is disposed on the inlet side of the heat-exchanger 8. Therefore, a combustion furnace 9 burns the combustible fuel together with the combustion air introduced through the connecting opening 15 and supplys the generated heat to the heat-exchanger 8. Then, the room air introduced by the blower 11 is discharged through the first opening. Meanwhile, the combustion gas, produced in the combustion furnace 9 during the combustion, is exhausted outwardly through an outlet pipe opening 14 in the heat-exchanger 8.
In the convention air conditioner constructed as described above, the room air necessary for cooling and heating is introduced into the air conditioner through the second opening 4 by the blower 11 attached on the bottom of the air conditioner body 18 and the introduced room air is filtered by means of an intake netting which is not shown. Consequently, the filtered air is heat-exchanged in the heat exchanger 7 or 8 and then the heat exchanged air is discharged through the first opening 3 provided with the up/down control plates 1 and the right/left control plates 1a.
In the case of heating, the outside air necessary for combustion is introduced through the connecting opening 15 and burned in the combustion furnace 9 by means of the combustion burner 16. In this case, the waste gas which is produced during the combustion is exhausted through the heat-exchanger 8 and the outlet pipe connecting opening 14.
More particularly, in the heating operation of the air conditioner, cool room air is sucked-in through the second opening 4, arranged on the lower side of the front panel 6, by means of the blower 11 and warmed. The warm air is discharged to the room through the up/down control plates 1 and the right/left control plates 1a which are arranged in the first opening 3 formed in the upper side of the front panel 6. Alternatively, in the cooling operation of the air conditioner, the room air is cooled by the high pressure cooling medium, supplied from the compressor of the outside machinery which is not shown, by using the heat exchanger 7 attached on the upper side of the air conditioner body 18, and the heat-exchanger air is discharged to the room through the up/down control plates 1 and the right/left control plates 1a, similarly to the heating operation as described above.
In the air conditioner constructed as described above, however, the blower 11 is disposed on the lower side of the air conditioner body 18, and the heating heat-exchanger 8 is disposed at the central area of the air conditioner body 18 and the cooling heat-exchanger 7 is arranged in the upper side of the air conditioner body 18. Thus, in the cooling or heating operation, positive pressure is over-loaded in the interior of the air conditioner body 18 because of the cooling heat-exchanger 7 or heating heat-exchanger 8, whereby heating or cooling efficiency can not be increased. As a result, there is a problem that the amount of air flow for cooling or heating is not obtained sufficiently.
Accordingly, the present invention has been made in consideration of the aforementioned problem and an object of the present invention is to provide an air conditioner in which the output of a blower can be decreased, power consumption also is decreased and positive pressure in the air conditioner body, whereby increasing the cooling and heating efficiency of the air conditioner during the cooling or heating operation.
To achieve the above object, the air conditioner of the present invention having a cooling heat-exchanger and a heating heat-exchanger, comprises; the cooling heat-exchanger arranged on the upper side of an air conditioner body for cooling the room air introduced by a convective blower; the heating heat-exchanger arranged on the lower side of the conditioner body for heating the room air introduced by convective blower; a wind blocking means arranged between the cooling heat-exchanger and the heating heat-exchanger for controlling the flow of the room air introduced by the convective blowers to direct the flowing direction of the room air upwardly or downwardly.
According to the air conditioner of the present invention constructed as mentioned above, the blower is arranged in the central area of the air conditioner body to allow the exchanged air be discharged upwardly or downwardly and the air conditioner body is provided with the heating heat-exchanger at its lower side and the cooling heat-exchanger at its upper side, respectively. Therefore, in the heating operation, the air introduced by the blower is blocked against P area (see to FIG. 3) and directed to Q area by means of the wind blocking means, so that the air is heat-exchanger warmly by passing through the heating heat-exchanger arranged on the lower side of the air conditioner body and then the warmly conditioned air is discharged to the room through an outlet which is disposed on the lower side of the air conditioner body. Alternatively, in the cooling operation, the air introduced by the blower is blocked in a direction of Q area and directed to P area, so that the air is heat-exchanged coldly by passing through the cooling heat-exchanger disposed on the upper side of the air conditioner body and then the coldly exchanged air is discharged to the room through an outlet which is arranged in the upper side of the air conditioner body. Accordingly, in the air conditioner of the present invention, the positive pressure of the air conditioner body is lower than the conventional air conditioner and even if the output capability of the blower used is to be relatively lowed, the proper wind is obtainable. Also, since the present invention applies the principle that the warm air is raised upwardly and the cool air is dropped downwardly, the heating and cooling efficiency can be further improved.
The above and other related objects and features of the invention will be apparent from a reading of the following description of the disclosure found in the accompanying drawings and the novelty thereof pointed out in the appended claims.